Robert Downey Jr Orbits Cuaron's 3D

EXCLUSIVE: Robert Downey Jr is negotiating a deal to star in Gravity, the 3D space film directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures will co-finance. Cuaron wrote the script with his son, Jonas. Downey will play the leader of a team posted at a remote space station. While he and a female colleague are traveling outside the space station, the other team members are decimated by debris from an exploded satellite.

Downey was drawn to the chance to work with Cuaron, the director of Children of Men and Y tu mama tambien. Downey will shoot the film in London this summer, finishing in time to re-team with director Guy Ritchie and Jude Law in the Sherlock Holmes sequel that will shoot early fall, also in London.

The script for Gravity had been developed originally at Universal with the intention of having Angelina Jolie play the female role. Much of the film is devoted to her struggle to get back to Earth and her daughter. Jolie passed on the project around the time Universal cut it loose.